Two thirds of Victoria Falls is in Zimbabwe, and that portion has water year round. We walked the length of the Zimbabwe side, and even in the dry season, you can see and hear the smoke that thunders.
Although we were across the gorge from the falls, we could feel a little mist when we started our walk. After a while, however, it started to rain ... except that it was not rain. So much mist comes across the gorge and settles on the trees, that it creates its own mini-climate zone - a tropical rain forest where it is always raining. When the falls are full, you have to wear a raincoat just to walk on the far side, and you cannot see the bottom of the falls because the mist rises so high.
After we left Victoria Falls, we drove on to Botswana where we are staying next to the Chobe National Park. In the afternoon, we took our first game drive - a boat ride down the Chobe River. Once again, it was peaceful as different kinds of antelope grazed, elephants walked by, hippos stood in the water with just their noses showing, and the occasional crocodile lay in the sun.
In the morning we went on a game drive in the park. Two lionesses walked across the road in front of us, but the highlight was a huge herd of elephants that surrounded our vehicle - adults, adolescents, and little babies. The guide did not seem concerned that the elephants were so near to us, maybe because we were in a vehicle this time. We just sat and watched the elephants. We also saw lots of antelopes, warthogs up close and personal, two giraffes, and a small group of zebras.
Mostly we have seen these animals standing and grazing. Or in the case of the warthogs, kneeling and grazing. But when the day became hotter, the antelope all sat in the shade where they chewed their cud, digesting all of the food they had eaten. We watched the kudus chew and could see the food go down their throats. They would stop chewing and a few seconds later, we could see something go up their throats. Then they would chew again and keep repeating the process. Fascinating.
In the afternoon we had a few hours free until our evening game drive so I went to my natural habitat - poolside - to read for a while. Bushback antelopes, mongooses, and baboons wander freely on the grounds of our resort, but I looked up from reading when I heard a splash and saw two baboons enjoying the pool. Then one climbed into a pool chair.
A few corrections and addenda to previous posts ...
First, when David Livingstone died, his two African attendants, Sussi and Chuma, buried his heart in Africa. Then they somehow embalmed him and carried him one thousand miles to the coast in Tanganyika where, according to the guide, they "pickled" him again. His body was brought back to England and he was buried in Explorer's Corner in Westminster Abbey, but his heart remains in Africa. Interesting because by the end, the British did not like Livingstone very much. He started out as a poor Scottish boy and became a world famous explorer, perhaps the best known of the nineteenth century. But he spent his last thirty years as an advocate against African slavery, making him very unpopular with the British colonialists.
Cecil Rhodes, on the other hand, had no such scruples. And he certainly had no business scruples. At the De Beers annual meeting in May 1887, Rhodes declared that amalgamation would enable the diamond industry to gain the position it ought to occupy, "that is, not at the mercy of the buyers, but the buyers under the control of the producers." What a nice guy.
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